“Well, sir,” said Henry, “you have given me a good lesson; now take a hint from me; just you go and do all this before the public; for I never saw you do any thing half as droll.”

They all three shook their heads with one accord.  Go out of the beaten track, before an audience?  Never.  Such vagaries were only admissible in private.

After this second day the fee was reduced to a gallon of ale.

But, on the third day, the pupil combined theory with practice.  He told his mother he was going to Cairnhope for the night.  He then rode off to Cairnhope Church.  He had two large saddle-bags, containing provisions, and tools of all sorts.  He got safe across the moor just before sunset.  He entered the church, led the horse in with him, and put him into the Squire’s pew.  He then struck a light, went into the chancel, and looked at the picture.  It was as he had left it; half on the wall, half drooping over the altar-place.  The walls were dank, and streaked here and there with green.  His footsteps echoed, and the edifice was all dark, except within the rays of his lantern; it also sang and moaned in a way to be accounted for by the action of the wind on a number of small apertures; but, nevertheless, it was a most weird and ghostly sound.  He was glad of the companionship of his very horse.

He took his buckets to the mountain stream, and, in due course, filled his trough, and left one bucket full for other uses.  He then prepared and lighted his forge.  As he plied the bellows, and the coals gleamed brighter and brighter, monumental figures came out and glared at him; mutilated inscriptions wavered on the walls; portions of the dark walls themselves gleamed in the full light, and showed the streaks and stains of age and weather, and the shadow of a gigantic horse’s head; and, as the illuminated part seemed on fire by contrast, so the dark part of the church was horribly black and mysterious, and a place out of which a ghost or phantom might be expected, at any moment, to come forth into that brilliant patch of light.

Young Little, who had entered on this business in all the skepticism of the nineteenth century, felt awed, and began to wish he had selected any other building in the world but this.  He seemed to be desecrating a tomb.

However, he mustered up his manly resolution.  He looked up at a small aperture in the roof, and saw a star glittering above:  it seemed close, and a type of that omniscient eye “from which no secrets are hid.”

He clasped his hands together, and said, “I hope God, who has seen me driven from the haunts of men, will forgive me for taking refuge here; and, if he does, I don’t care who else is offended, alive or dead.”  And, with this, he drew the white-hot strip of steel from the forge on to the anvil, and down came his hammer with a blow that sent the fiery steel flying all round, and rang and echoed through the desolate building, instantly there was a tremendous plunge and clatter, followed by a shaking sound, and, whiz, the church was fanned by black wings going zigzag.